What's one a the first things ya do after stagin' a bloody Gutter Coup? You hire a heavy hitter to protect your crew's asses. And badass independent book reviewer David Nemeth's one of the heaviest hitters we know. He's also a real "straight shooter." Which is exactly what we need when dealin' with crooked cops. Besides ownin' a helluva rap sheet, Mr. Nemeth scrapes some a the best dirt from Indie crime scenes and broadcasts these weekly Incident Reports on his blog Unlawful Acts. So hell yeah: he may be a mercenary, but we're glad he's tossed his chips in with our merry band of murderous miscreants. David also made his crime writing debut last year right here at FFO. Smart thugs in The Gutter won't need an ounce of prompting to give this crime hitter a read.

Cody sold drugsin the summertime moving from one music festival to the next.
Sitting in a camping chair under a large canopy, he lit a joint and
listened to a Bob Marley mix on his portable speakers. The music was loud
enough, and the weed was good enough. Alone they might not attract buyers, but
the combination of the two proved irresistible.

Selling drugs at festivals was easy as the cops didn’t care about
dealing or drug use. They were there just to keep everyone safe. Selling drugs
at festivals was lucrative. It paid for the camping and tickets, and it paid
for his empty apartment back in Philadelphia.

“What’s up?” said a voice.

Cody looked up to see a tall lanky kid somewhere in his
mid-twenties. He wore flip-flops and dirty cargo shorts held up by a rope belt.
Shirtless, he had thin colorful scarves draped around his neck and his wrists
were covered with all sorts of bracelets. His skin was deeply tanned.

“Yo,” said Cody.

“Can I get a hit?”

Cody stretched out his hand towards his new hippie friend and
handed him the joint.

“Thanks.”

Cody pointed to a chair next to him. “Take a load off.”

Less than five minutes later, the kid purchased some E and a gram
of bud, and had disappeared. Cody knew two things: he’d see the kid again and
he’d tell his friends. It was only Thursday and Cody felt good.

***

On Friday, more kids set up camp at the festival, filling the
fields with tents of red, blue, green, and orange. Cody straightened out his
campsite and came across the warning paper the festival organizers handed out
to campers as they drove in. There had been talk that some festival goers had
been killed over the last few years, but it was only rumor and with hundreds of
festivals over a five-month period, who really knew what was going on. Cody
knew the kids wouldn’t care about the warning even with a state police logo on
it. They were immortal at this age, immune to everything from bad Molly to coke
cut with laundry detergent. Warning or no warning, the kids would still come to
him; they always did.

He set up a game of Stump that a group of kids were playing. Once
in a while, Cody would join in on the game, flip the hammer, grab the handle in
mid-air and swing down on a nail, but never too hard. It’s never good for a
drug dealer to win at these games. He even gave out hot dogs, veggie sausage,
and Natty Light. The bigger the party, the more drugs he sold. It amazed him
how ill-prepared these kids were when they came to a festival. But they always
had money for drugs.

***

Early Sunday morning and well after the last EDM show, Cody sat
alone, drank a session IPA, and listened to some chilled House. He thought
about when he was going to head out. He had two weeks till his next festival
and he was beat after four back-to-back festivals.

Nate stopped by. He was around Cody’s age, somewhere in his
mid-to-late thirties and he had bought some weed yesterday. Or was it the day
before? The days blended together.

Cody offered Nate a cold IPA instead of the shitty Natty Lights he
gave to the kids. They talked about the shows they’d seen and whether they were
too old for this scene.

After 30 minutes or so, Nate asked for a gram of coke. Cody got up
to get it. When he returned, Nate was nowhere to be found.

“Hey,” said Cody in a loud whisper.

“I’m taking a piss,” said Nate from the other side of his
neighbor’s car. “The beer went right through me.”

Cody sat down.

Nate came back and asked Cody if he could have another beer.

Cody nodded.

Nate walked over to the cooler that was slightly out of Cody’s
reach and with one swift movement slammed the Stump hammer on Cody’s
head.

Cody mumbled something and then another blow came down on his
skull. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth blow, Cody was dead and on the
ground.

Nate removed the wallet, car keys, and a wad of bills from the
dead man’s pockets. He grabbed the bag of coke still gripped by the
lifeless hand. He dragged the body into a tent and zipped it closed. No one
would find the body till Monday afternoon at the earliest.

Nate got into the dead man’s van and drove away.

David Nemeth lives in Wilmington, Delaware with his wife, son, and two dogs. He is a graduate of Emerson College with a BFA in Creative Writing. Mr. Nemeth is the editor of Unlawful Acts, a columnist at Do Some Damage, has written for The Thrill Begins, and has served as a Bouchercon panelist. You can buy him a drink on Facebook.

Chris "Keyser Soze" Rhatigan and his editing "Hands-of-Stone for-Hire" have sunk once again to their Gutter roots. For ...

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